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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25705165">Reason and Purpose</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/butimnotdeadyet/pseuds/butimnotdeadyet'>butimnotdeadyet</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>R&amp;P [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Drinking, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Pre-Relationship, Zukki, Zuko is VERY distracted by his pretty friends kissing, Zuko loves them, like 24ish, sukka know what they want and hes right in front of them, they are adults, zrb</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:00:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,279</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25705165</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/butimnotdeadyet/pseuds/butimnotdeadyet</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>canon through original show, vaguely inspired by some post-canon material + fanon + whatever I say goes</p><p> </p><p>Zuko has many good friends. He loves them and cherishes them all.<br/>But he may be completely in love with a couple of them.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sokka/Suki (Avatar), Sokka/Suki/Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Suki/Zuko (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>R&amp;P [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1864240</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>208</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Reason and Purpose</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>okay Zukka, Sukka, and Zukki folks lets hit the ground running. pretty typical Lord Zuko/ ambassador Sokka / commander of the guard Suki. Sukka is already a thing, has been for a while. Zuko has low self-worth, what's new. He loves them a lot but tries his hardest to pretend he doesn't. </p><p>prepare for some stupidly flower-y language and many commas -- its been forever since I've written frequently and the DRAMA is real. Also guess who just rewatch pride &amp; prejudice. that's right. not that this is p&amp;p inspired, that's just life.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Zuko loved all of his friends. They held his confidence, they advised and protected him, they made sure that he never crumpled beneath the weight of demands and challenges that his position continually presented. He liked to think that he returned these favors in kind.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Aang needed a break from moderating of all the world’s problems, he would come visit Zuko in the capitol and they’d run katas until their legs were shaking or trying to teach some of Aang’s old-timey Fire Nation dance to whatever civilians were in shouting distance of the front gate. Never did Zuko ever feel as connected to his country and bending as he did the Avatar by his side. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Mai remained, as she always had been, Zuko’s source of stability, the touchstone for what he wanted to accomplish and what was out of reach, if only for now. Zuko, in turn, supported every off-the-wall, status quo-challenging but thoroughly needed law that she put forth. The Sages decreed that there had not been such an influential alliance between the nobility and royalty of the nation since the days before Sozin.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For Toph, it was agreed that all expectations were to be subverted and disassembled as quickly as possible. When tension needed to be broken, be it with frustrating generals or overbearing parents, they would pull out all the stops to give the other a chance to regroup. If they were together free from other distractions, they would sneak past the guards with increasingly ridiculous disguises and pseudonyms or circumnavigate the armor and spears completely and parade through the streets, leaving shock and no small amount of chaos in their wake. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Though Katara didn’t regularly need Zuko’s help in person. Instead, they acted as each other’s correspondence ventilation. Letters between them would often be several pages long and full of increasing foul and agitated language as each offloaded their frustrations regarding everything from diplomatic discourse to horrible weather, always on equal ground. On the rare but memorable occasion that some else would read one of their intended letters, both would have to quickly refute rumors of approaching strife.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The optimism and understated self-sufficiency that ruled Ty Lee became invaluable to Zuko when he had to explain, repeatedly, to men and women who had made their careers by pushing the unconventional or ‘inconvenient’ citizens to the side that </span>
  <em>
    <span>every</span>
  </em>
  <span> person had their due and their own destiny to find. Ty Lee found that having someone to represent the little, or great, differences amongst the people was </span>
  <em>
    <span>groundbreaking</span>
  </em>
  <span> when it came to changing the societal outlook of war to peace. When Ty Lee fell truly in love for the first time in her life with a girl from Shu Jing, she told Zuko first. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>All of them were great and lovely and dependable and easily defined as his closest companions. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then there was Sokka and Suki. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which is not to say that they are unworthy or greedy in friendship. Quite the opposite. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Zuko, for the life of him, could simply not figure out why they </span>
  <em>
    <span>stayed</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Over the years, Suki had woven herself so deeply into the commanding network of guards and soldiers in his protection detail that he was not entirely sure that they would be able to function without her. She had shared her own proprietary and tradition-imbued training with citizens of the Fire Nation (under the tentative allowance of the Governor of Kyoshi). She had, for possibly the first time since the outbreak of the war, brought non-benders into the spotlight in terms of martial arts and battle strategy. And in return, Zuko had been able to give her . . .  what? A job, yes, and a position of no small means in his court, but not possibly so tempting as to truly be of greater value than her own home and family. Even if she had desired to leave Kyoshi, Zuko was certain that she would have been rewarded with greater reverence and compensation as a woman of her skill, tenacity, beauty, and leadership in the Upper Ring of Ba Sing Se than in the officer barracks of the Fire Palace. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And Sokka; who had accepted Zuko’s invitation of Advising Ambassador with so little hesitation that Zuko was so sure the offer had been misconstrued and he had gone down to the scribes in full court regalia just to confirm that the proposition had been delivered as he had drafted it. Yet, it seemed that the tribesman had accepted with full comprehension. Sokka, whose mind and prowess could have given him a position in any industrial firm around the world, whose favor with the Earth Kings is unmatched except by perhaps the Avatar himself, who almost singled-handly masterminded the first successful siege laid to the Bay of the Gates of Azulon since their conception. Why had the man who - with the help of his family and allies - had completely resurrected and revolutionized the economy of the Southern Water Tribe by the age of twenty, agree to move to a foreign isle just to be in the cabinet of a polarizing ruler who had long ago used up all of his limited good fortune in a hazardous pursuit of redemption and his patience in poorly brewing tea.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Why were they here and why, </span>
  <em>
    <span>why</span>
  </em>
  <span>, did they stay?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zuko asked himself this on a biweekly basis. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>‘Biweekly’ because it was only about once every two weeks that the three of them had long enough breaks in their itineraries to sit down and have supper together. For Sokka and Zuko it was usually the first meal in days that they had without the company of other dignitaries or eaten in a rush over some product report of one origin or another. For Suki it was typically one of the few that she experienced both sitting down </span>
  <em>
    <span>and </span>
  </em>
  <span>inside. Unless, of course, it was springtime and the rain held off long enough and the turtleducklings by the pond were receptive to a few friendly pets between courses.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And today was one of those nights. The meal had come and gone in record time - none of them had ever exhibited much need to savor the food, eating was practical and necessary and their cook was very good - and they were all sprawled on the grass with little regard for how they would appear to an audience, which was fine considering their only viewers numbered more highly in feathers than options on decorum. Even the guards left them to their own devices, what with their commander present and still in full gear and the Fire Lord only asking for privacy on such rare occasions; with the addition of Ambassador Sokka, the three of them had foiled more than half of the coup and assassination attempts themselves. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Zuko would never say it out loud, but he lived for such evenings: nothing to do but lay in the garden with his friends talking about whatever ridiculous rumor the city had spat out in the last little while or which uninteresting but influential court member had managed to make an enemy of what equally unappealing magistrate. Gossip was a child’s game to be sure, but they had never had much of a chance to play. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>As the moon rose, only a half ring in the sky but beautiful as ever, they turned to the topics of Suki’s self-defense and introductory weapons training curriculum with the girls from the academy (“It can’t be too intense, you see. It’s taken eight years, but we are finally getting away from that innate militarization that Ty Lee and Mai had to put up with while they were in school...”) and Sokka’s soon to be-made-public plans for the new steam-powered ferries (“They’re so much more efficient! As far as the reparations go, I think this has got to on of the best thing that we’ll be able to give the Earth Nation…”). </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They talked for hours, still sipping on drinks and nibbling at the little fried cakes that the cook always left for them, each loosening as time went on. Sokka took off his belt and boots, Suki undid her bracers and headdress, shucking her shoes as well. They talked until they ran out of topics and new opinions to share and it was quiet and all Zuko had to do was turn his head to know that Suki and Sokka had curled around each other.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That was the other problem with Suki and Sokka. Suki and Sokka kissed a lot. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pass them in the halls, fair chance they were whispering and stealing kisses.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Join one for tea in the morning, the other would come in a press sleepy lips to the other’s cheek.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At parties, they always seemed to orbit one another, never going too far to be unreachable, always close enough to find each other if a slow song was up next, sharing sweet kisses while they swayed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And they kissed in the gardens, after the food was gone and silence greeted the clouds rolling in for a midnight rainstorm.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They kissed a lot and Zuko, for some reason, could never look away. This time was no different. It was not a careful kiss, the kiss by the pond. Not simple and reserved like Zuko’s own kisses had been. It was more and deeper and for some reason they didn’t seem to even care that he was there, seeing it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span> Zuko, laying on his back with his hair undone and surely getting thoroughly knotted by little webbed feet, sighed and wondered why they were there at all. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And, because he had taken a little too well to the sweet plum rice wine Sokka had bought for them to share and </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> truly used up all of his good luck years ago, he said as much out loud. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Had he not been watching them already, he would have been startled at how they jumped.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh, I’m sorry, Zuko-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sorry, man, we got a little carried away, I guess.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They spoke at once and Zuko closed his eyes. The </span>
  <em>
    <span>last</span>
  </em>
  <span> thing he wanted to hear from either of them was an apology. They owed him nothing. How did two such beautiful idealists trap themselves here with him?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And he must have been still thinking out loud because Suki responded.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Last I checked, Lord Fire Flakes, we’re in a garden with no roof. Any one of us could scale that west wall and be out of the palace in moments. No one’s trapped here.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Zuko opened his eyes and glared, his meaning, if metaphorical, had been clear. Sokka piled on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, Hotman. Thanks for calling me pretty, though. Guys like me don’t get to hear it enough.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sokka smirked as he paused, some of Suki’s red paint glinting on his lips. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Though, I guess Suki did ban you from going to the play last week.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Suki sat up and encouraged Sokka to do the same before giving an unneeded defense.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That was only because I saw it with some of the guards and it had a whole side plot about a murderous king with a scar on his face--”  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh, yikes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sokka cut her off, poking at Suki’s side until she shuffled out of his reach. For a moment her face caught the light of the lamps on the breezeway, kind eyes wide and a little sad.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Shit, I’m sorry, Zuko--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Stop apologizing to me. And it doesn’t matter, I already knew what it was about. I have an entire office of people who are bouncing on the ball of their feet every week to tell me about what is happening in this city and every other in the nation.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It was even worse than the Players, Zuko, the characterization was horrible-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And Suki said that there were even hints that he was, like, </span>
  <em>
    <span>in love </span>
  </em>
  <span>with his mother or something-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I mean, the actor should have never been cast, he was so dull and boring-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And didn’t you say that the love interest ending up rejecting him because-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Of his jealousy and insecurity, yeah! So he’s nothing like you, Zuko!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yes, I know that. Because the play is based on the life of Lord Araz, who ruled almost four hundred years ago and who was ugly and dull and actually in love with his mother for several years but thank you, both, for telling me just how </span>
  <em>
    <span>little </span>
  </em>
  <span>he reminded you of me. Despite him actually </span>
  <em>
    <span>not being me!”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For a moment he was almost concerned that they wouldn’t understand. That he would have to backtrack and talk about how during the first year of his reign, before either of them were around and after Mai had moved on, it had been said that he would be nothing more than a new Araz, unlovable and broken. But Suki’s soft, answering ‘oh’ meant that even though they were not Fire Nation, had not grown up with the stories and histories of that particular predecessor’s failings, it was still clear how the implication could land.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Uh, sorr-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sokka, I swear to Agni and La and whoever else that if you apologize I am going to force myself to internalize everything the two of you just alluded to </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>thinking and carry it with me until it turns me into the bitter lord I was destined to be and you will have no one to blame but yourselves.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Right, right. Not sorry.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Good.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There was a pause as they all took a breath, until Suki sat up a little straighter, drawing him in with the moment like she did when she wanted to call his attention and only his attention in a meeting. He wished it didn’t work.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So . . . if you didn’t mean actually trapped, what did you mean?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No drunk interrogations, Suki. It’s not fair.” They had done that dance before and Zuko had admitted to a few things that would have been better off deep inside him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Uncle would beg to differ, as he does on most of Zuko’s personal thoughts.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh, come on, I’ve had at least as much to drink as you have-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And I’ve had more!” Sokka expounded, truthfully, before dragging Suki back closer to him with his nose pressed to her hair and his eyes landing on Zuko, crinkling at the edges. Zuko tried to be nonchalant in moving his hands behind his head. Pining them beneath his body would be too obvious but he had to keep them from shaking somehow.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“So there’s no harm in it, Mr. Fire Lord.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Zuko grunted. There could be harm. Friendship ruining, faith-breaking harm. But his mouth was still moving freely.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I meant that it makes no sense, either of you being here. You two - you’re so much better than all of this. You left your homes to come here to mine and this is my country and I love it, it means everything to me, but it - these things - they aren’t battles that </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> are supposed to be fighting!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Suki rocked back a little bit, knocking bodily into Sokka, who had sat forward at Zuko’s words. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Zuko, what are you talking about?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sokka had that way of talking that meant that Zuko had no choice but to listen to every word that came out of his well-formed mouth and he hated it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You should be out, changing the world, far away from me and the court and the ‘loyalists’ that treat you like mud to be scraped off their shoes. Where you don’t have to train girls that were taught by their parents that anyone who doesn’t look or act or talk like them have to prove their worth as a person before they can even begin to think of them as a teacher, or go somewhere that can take your mind and ideas and use them as they should be used instead of as a salve on old wounds.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Suki snorted, or scoffed, or emitted a sound that by some other word was best used as a complete disregard. Not a sound that he heard much anymore, both welcome and frustrating. She sent her wine aside and fixed Zuko with the kind of look that he was pretty sure had been crafted to make new recruits fear her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So you think that we are suffering from some shared delusion? Falsely indebted? You think that we are somehow wasting way on your tropical island filled with intellectual enterprise and culture and beauty? That we’re trapped here by fear of the unknown, or loss? No, Zuko.” If Zuko had any self-restraint left, he would refuse to see the softness in her eyes that had become more and more clear as she spoke. “Never.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, buddy. We - we’ve done a lot of things, a lot of </span>
  <em>
    <span>good</span>
  </em>
  <span> things in the South and on Kyoshi Island but we came back here, to y- to the Fire Nation because we realized we could do more. Our homes are recovering, they had help from all over, but most of the Fire Nation was at a standstill while all of the people that actually gave a shit, like </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>, were running around trying to keep it from falling apart from the inside.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Putting out fires,” Suki added with a smile. “When we saw that we could help the Fire Nation, you, we couldn’t stay away.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Why did they have to be so good? Not great, not perfect but </span>
  <em>
    <span>good.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Zuko knew how hard it was to be good and Suki and Sokka just - did it. He was glad he was already laying on the ground, awe usually knocked him flat. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And I . . . love you both for that. But that doesn’t change that fact that you would have so many better options-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What better option is there than staying right where we are, where we’re needed</span>
  <em>
    <span> and </span>
  </em>
  <span>wanted by at least one person.” She framed it as a question but did not bother to hide its directness. He should make Suki his head negotiator, the governors would be cowed in a matter of minutes. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Even if that </span>
  <em>
    <span>one person</span>
  </em>
  <span> is trying very hard to convince us to leave him tonight, for some stupid reason.” How Sokka ever got anything properly negotiated was beyond him. Though, ambassadors do tend to be sober when in chambers, so that may have something to do with it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>As it stood, it was childish to complain and selfish to comply. What the alternative?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want you to leave! If I could make a perfect world, have the Fire Nation be a utopia to all who live there, solve all of our problems and the rest of the nations’ while we’re at it, I would still want you </span>
  <em>
    <span>here,</span>
  </em>
  <span> with me. Because I don’t think that I could ever let either of you go if it were my choice. So, </span>
  <em>
    <span>it has to be yours.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Honesty. Mostly drunk, and all true.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And if it’s our choice to stay?” Suki asked, gentle as a whisper. “Then what?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Then . . . then, I wish I could read your minds.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sokka laughed either at the ridiculousness, or the unexpectedness, or maybe out of sheer exhaustion. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, I hate to break it to you Zuko, but right now my mind is a little full of plum wine and possibilities. Why would you want to read it?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“To know if you mean it all the same way that I want you to.” Because if they did, it would be everything. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“But how do you want us to mean it, Zuko? We can’t see what you’re thinking either.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Suki, hoping for clarity before the night caught up to him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I want . . . there to be possibilities.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On nights like this, he always fell asleep by the pond.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I have *plans* for more, some things that take place before, some after, so if you like this please tell me. I'm marking this as a series in hopes of pressuring myself to write more.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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